A Sweater Stitched with Lies
by nyetwit
Summary: Tragedy threatens to unravel the Huxtable clan. Will Cliff overcome his own personal demons in time? Will a secret affair drive the family even further apart? Is Olivia going to die?
1. A Broken Man Remembers

Cliff Huxtable slowly raised his head from the stark absoluteness of the basement floor. An original pressing of Cole Porter's "Kiss Me, Kate" ached against the cold concrete walls. Between songs, the gentle sobs of Vanessa, Cliff's second youngest daughter, swelled and faded like an autumn breeze. How had this day unraveled on him? 

It had been three long years since the tragedy that had rocked the family to its very foundation. Three long years. And yet, those wounds were still so fresh, knives in Cliff's soul. He closed his eyes again. The flood of memories made him audibly wince.

"Sondra? Elvin?" Claire Huxtable called into the stagnant air of the apartment, "Are you home? The door was op..."

And then her screams. Cliff would never forget her screams.

The body had been meticulously positioned on the couple's red leather sofa. Elvin's body. The eyes and genitals had been removed, and the naked flesh revealed a seemingly endless array of vicious tears and punctures. Cliff instictively took a step forward to calm his hysterical wife, and his feet sank into the blood-soaked plush carpeting.

"My babies..." they heard a voice from the bedroom moan.

"Oh Jesus!" Claire leapt from Cliff's embrace. He followed.

Sondra, the couple's eldest child, slowly rocked back and forth from the edge of an unmade bed. Her clothes were stained crimson; her eyes were wild.

"Sondra! Oh Jesus, Sondra!" Claire began, throwing her arms around her daughter, "Are you hurt?"

Sondra's eyes met with Claire's in a gaze which made Cliff shiver.

"My babies..." she deadpanned again, "My babies..."

"Where are the twins, Sondra?" Claire asked, her voice severe.

Cliff noticed for the first time that the silence in the disheveled apartment was almost deafening. Winnie and Nelson, well into the throes of their terrible twos, were never this quiet. His heart sank.

"Where are they?" Claire demanded again.

Silence.

And then Sondra slowly moved her head toward the hallway, giggling softly.

"Sondra!" Claire pleaded, "Where..."

Cliff was already wandering back down the hall. The sillouette of Elvin's corpse made him uneasy.

What time was it now? The sinking sun had already thrown shadows upon the contents of the apartment. Cliff fumbled for a lightswitch and then began searching through piles of sullied clothes and toys. His hope of finding the twins alive had diminished to such a disheartening degree that he didn't even bother to call their names.

Claire wept as she joined her husband in the livingroom. "P-please hurry." she panted into her cellphone to the 9-1-1 operator on the other end. Her years of being a hard-nosed attorney had failed to prepare her for this.

Claire's eyes darted from the livingroom to the kitchen. Blood congealed in large pools on the once pristine tiles. This was a nightmare world. Time slowed to a crawl. Her heart felt as if it might beat its way out of her chest.

Cliff heard his wife cry out, and then the solid thud of her body collapsing against the kitchen counter and onto the floor. He sprinted through the doorway. And immediately wished he hadn't.

Lying on the counter was a large knife and beside it, what initially appeared to be pieces of ground meat. Had Elvin been making dinner when some unseen killer had assailed him?

"No...no..." Cliff shook his head as he struggled to make sense of it all.

"NO!" His eyes had found their way to the kitchen sink. He fell to his knees. Time stopped. And his uncontrollable sobs mingled with the tender lilt of Sondra's singing from the doorway.

"And down will come baby, " she warbled, "cradle and all."


	2. The Funeral

A single tear streamed down Cliff's cheek as he remembered the day of the funeral. Two tiny caskets. Closed, due to the circumstances. And flowers. So many beautiful flowers. 

Cockroach's family had sent the first bouquets. One, a personal arrangement of pink and yellow posies. The other, a large cross of lilies from the offices of his father's scrap metal company. Claire had wept during the delivery, but composed herself just in time to thank Cockroach as he entered the door to the chapel, his arm draped protectively around Rudy.

Theo sat, stone-faced, in the row of pews closest to the twins. His sisters, Vanessa and Denise, plucked several tissues from an already depleted Kleenex box, and attempted to comfort one another beside him. Cockroach lead Rudy to the coffins of Winnie and Nelson. And she tearfully cradled each one before taking a seat amongst her siblings.

Cliff had always thought himself a strong man. As a boy, his brother James had been terminally ill, and his death had tested the very fortitude of the Huxtable household. A young Cliff had seen it through. He had tackled death. How was it that now, as a man of considerable experience and wisdom, he was somehow more fragile? Why had his masculinity lost its footing at such an inopportune time, a time wherein his family needed his strength the most?

Soon after, the cracks began to show. Hours of lost time. And Claire's venomous accusations when she found Cliff's shoebox in the safe behind the Ellis Wilson; a painting, appropriately enough, of a Haitian funeral procession.

"What...the hell...do you think you're doing?" she had hissed, "Bringing this...this shit into our home?"

And Cliff had said nothing.

His experimentation with crystal meth had begun innocently, if there is such a thing, back in medical school. Deep within the veritable labyrinth of the Hillman library, Cliff had struggled to keep his eyes open, the textbook in his hands a blur of meaninglessness. If only "Tailwind" Turner hadn't been visiting his campus that night. If only he hadn't offered an exhausted Cliff "something to help you study". If only, if only...

For the next few years, meth was his edge, his secret weapon. It enabled Cliff to excel above and beyond the aptitude of his fellow students. He rarely slept, memorizing entire volumes of biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology. He had graduated with honors, an inhuman hybrid of genius and track star. And Cliff's parents, Anna and Russell, had presented him with his grandfather's pocket watch after the ceremony. He had never seen them happier.

It was no surprise that Claire had been the one to ruin everything, to bring his terrible secret to the attention of his mother and father, to save him. At the time, Cliff had taken her confession as merely the revenge of a scorned woman; two weeks prior to graduation, Claire had caught him kissing Eunice Chantilly outside his dorm room, and an explosive argument had ensued. But as the months passed, Cliff came to know a kinder, more compassionate Claire. She was determined to see him through treatment. And after one full year of sobriety, she married him.

Cliff had persevered through an unrelenting internship unaided by his secret weapon. He had survived night after sleepless night of difficult labors, timing contractions, and cesarean sections. He was a respected obstetrician now, at the top of his field. He was a beloved father and grandfather. An attentive husband. And now, at the hands of these unspeakable events, he had been reduced to this. A broken shell. A drug addict.

"My brother says there aren't even bodies in those coffins." he had overheard Bud, Rudy's oft insensitive ex-boyfriend say after the funeral, "Sandra cut them into pieces, and fed most of them down the garbage disposal."

Cliff sat upright, not wanting to remember, not wanting to think. He had lost a substantial amount of weight in the three years since the tragedy. His once taut sweater now hung loosely around his gangly frame. His eyes were sleepy and bloodshot.

"I'm a track star..." he mumbled, "I'm a track star..."

Vanessa crawled toward her father on her hands and knees. Her eyes were swollen and bruised; her nose, visibly broken.

"I'm sorry, daddy. I'm sorry."

What had she said that had set him off? Cliff couldn't remember. He wrapped one arm around his mangled daughter. And night slowly bled into day.


	3. Family Secrets

Claire awoke the next morning to find her husband out of bed and her granddaughter Olivia sleeping in a tiny mound beside her. She leaned over and kissed the child gingerly on the forehead. Olivia sighed, and shifted beneath the heavy comforter. 

"Heathcliff? Are you down here?" Claire called from the top of the basement steps.

"Hmmmmph?" Cliff answered. He had somehow fallen asleep. Vanessa was no longer by his side.

Claire descended and pulled her husband to his feet, ever vigilant of the hypodermic needles strewn about the floor. Five minutes later, she had managed to maneuver Cliff up the imposing staircase, and helped him to bed. Olivia, startled by the sudden movement, rolled over and snuggled her grandpa. Claire's heart ached as she watched the tender moment unfurl, wishing she could freeze it in time forever.

Dabnis Brickey had just put the finishing touches on a bit of shrubbery that had been begging for a trim. He took pride in his work, and exhibited such focus that he hardly even noticed Vanessa's car as it screeched to a halt in the middle of his driveway.

"Nessa?" he mused.

The second Vanessa stepped out into the sunlight, Dabnis realized the gravity of her situation. She looked like a prize fighter who had gone fifteen rounds and lost. They embraced without a word. Then Dabnis escorted her into the house and delicately nursed her wounds.

"My father is a good man," Vanessa began at last. "a good father."

She had been so thankful that Dabnis hadn't pumped her for information immediately, that he had respected her need for his own brand of quiet understanding. But now she was ready. She hoped he was willing to hear what she had to say.

"He hits me because he's sick." she tearfully explained, "He needs help. He hasn't been the same since...since..."

Dabnis pulled Vanessa close and shook his head.

"Never again, Nessa. Never again."

Dabnis' compassion was temporarily replaced by another, more sinister emotion. As he cradled his broken girlfriend in his arms, he eyed the twelve-gauge shotgun he kept above his mantle.

"Never again." he said again.

Rudy Huxtable walked down the seniors' corridor of her high school and stopped at her locker. She had forgotten the suggested reading material her English teacher had assigned and there was no way in hell she was sharing a book with Bud again.

"Sixteen. Thirty-four. Twelve." Rudy sighed. The halls were completely empty now. She was going to be late. Swinging the door of her locker wide, she gasped, finding a dozen red roses waiting for her inside.

"What? Who?" she glanced up and down the deserted hallway, confused. A small envelope accompanied the flowers. She opened it and read aloud.

"To Rudy. You can spend your lunch hour enjoying taco salad, or you can spend it enjoying ME. Your choice. Love, C."

Rudy felt her cheeks flush as she retrieved her book and headed toward class. He was up to his old tricks again, and she was too young for old tricks. Still, Rudy couldn't suppress a smile as she took her seat behind Bud. And, thankfully, Mrs. McGee wasn't in the mood to meddle.

"I know what you're up to." Bud sneered during group study. They were supposed to be discussing Ethan Frome. But he had already decided on quite another topic of conversation.

"I know! And I'll ruin you for it!"

"What do you want from me, Kenny?" she offered at last. Rudy almost never used Bud's actual name, she pointed it now, emphasizing that the time for idle threats had passed.

"You know what I want." he snapped. He undressed her with his eyes, and thoroughly enjoyed the fact that it made her so visibly uncomfortable.

"Again." he added, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

"Kenny, it's over." she told him, "It's been over since seventh grade. You and I are very different people now. You have to stop this!"

"Shhh!" Mrs. McGee had overheard, and this was not the intellectal literary discussion she had in mind.

Bud continued to antagonize her until the bell rang at last. Lunch period. Rudy stopped at the door which lead to the school's parking lot.

"I'm just driving to Circus Burger for a bite to eat." she reasoned with herself. "I have no ulterior motives for going to my car."

Despite her looming uncertainty, Rudy's heart leapt when she recognized the figure leaning across her handed-down station wagon. He wore a pair of tattered black boots and blue cover-alls bearing the name "Walter Bradley Scrap Metal Co." When he smiled at her, Rudy became acutely aware of her inability to refuse him.

"Hi." he smiled again and this time, his hand found hers. He pulled her toward him.

"Hi, yourself." Rudy smiled back. He kissed her with such passion that she lost her breath, her arms clasping him tighter. When he was done, she returned the favor.

"So..." he managed at last, "Where are we going for lunch?"

"Get in." Rudy gestured to the backseat of her car, "I want to show you something."

"What is it?" he asked, recognizably intrigued.

With a sultry smile, Rudy replied, "My gratitude for those roses you put in my locker."


	4. The Caged Bird Sings

Theo and Denise rounded the corner of Gartrelle Mental Asylum's infamous fifth floor. 

"The nurses station should be just up ahead." Denise chirped, disguising a shiver. Theo took a deep breath and sighed audibly. She immediately elbowed him in the ribs.

"We're here to see Sondra Tibideaux?" Denise tapped on the counter as she spoke, a nervous habit.

Nurse Westlake adjusted her eyeglasses so that they were perched on the very end of her nose. She stared at them for quite some time. "Tibideaux, you say?"

"Yes." answered Denise, and then as an afterthought, "Ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

Theo sighed again.

The nurse lead them to a long hallway peppered with security personnel and an assortment of doors which required proper authorization. She nodded at one of the guards who, after much scribbling upon a clipboard, offered her a red key card. Nurse Westlake appeared as if steadying herself, and proceeded to unlock the door. Denise instinctively grabbed Theo's hand.

They soon found themselves traveling down one corridor, and then another. Each door they passed was color-coded. Nurse Westlake halted abruptly beside one of the red doors and inspected the number on the chart outside.

"She should pose no danger." The nurse gave them each a reassuring smile, "You have ten minutes."

Sondra appeared to be preoccupied with a child's coloring book when Denise gathered her composure and sat down beside her. Nurse Westlake took a seat nearby, cautious. Theo remained in the doorway until a portly guard nudged his right shoulder.

"Got to keep it closed." he oinked.

Theo took a step forward, but couldn't bring himself to look at his sister. The guard exited and closed the door behind him.

"Sondra?" Denise managed. Her tone reminded Theo of how she might speak to Olivia. "That's a beautiful picture you're working on, Sondra."

Sondra dropped her crayon and stared blankly into space, her mouth slightly agape. Denise tried again.

"Sondra, Theo and I have come to see you. We love you very much. How've you been?"

Theo, who had been waiting for an excuse to leave, crossed his arms and scowled, "Denise, she doesn't even understand you. Let's go."

Immediately, Sondra reacted to Theo's voice. Her demeanor became wild. Nurse Westlake stood up, anticipating the worst.

"You!" Sondra rasped, "Ellllllllvinnnnnnnnn!"

She pointed a finger at Theo and appeared to speak in tongues. Denise was terrified. Nurse Westlake interceded, "That's enough!"

The portly guard soon returned, accompanied by two others, and the nurse assisted them in belting Sondra down with thick, white leather straps.

"Ellllllllllllvinnnnnnnnnn!" she growled at Theo.

Denise grabbed Theo's arm and pulled him out the door. The two spent the entire drive home in complete silence.

Rudy Huxtable was no stranger to the backseat of a car. She had lost her virginity at the age of eleven in the very station wagon she now found herself hastily undressing within. She shuddered and tried to push the image of Bud, sweaty and giggling, out of her mind.

Cockroach tenderly lifted her chin and looked into her eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked. His concern was evident. He had always loved her. Why then, did Rudy insist on pretending she was just using him for sex?

"Look, I know what you're thinkin'." As he spoke, he caressed the side of her cheek with his thumb. "It won't always be like this, Ru. I'm going to inherit my dad's scrap metal company. All this sneaking around is just temporary."

"But I like sneaking around!" she lied, "It's exciting! You're the older man. I'm the innocent school girl..."

"Rudy," he began in a stern tone, "one day I'll be able to walk up to Dr. Huxtable and tell him that I'm in love with his daughter."

"Shhh..." Rudy silenced him by touching her finger to his lips. "I'm not interested in 'One Day Walter Bradley'. I want 'Right Now Cockroach'. And I want him. Right now."

Cockroach wanted to turn her away. He hated himself for letting her get inside him, break his heart. She didn't care about his noble intentions. As Rudy tugged the zipper of his cover-alls with her teeth, she grinned, and he was hers. Game over. The end.

Rudy crawled into Cockroach's lap, slipped off her shirt, and unfastened her bra. She could feel his inflexible member swelling between her legs. She whimpered softly and ran her fingers down his chest, shimmy'ing herself closer. Cockroach could feel that Rudy was naked beneath her skirt; and her warm, wet softness made him even harder.

They kissed for what seemed like hours, slowly, breathing the same breath. Cockroach slid his hands along Rudy's thighs, pushing her skirt up around her waist. She lifted herself with her knees, and he sank into her, deliberate and lingering. Rudy bit her lip to suppress a moan while Cockroach encircled the satiny plum of her areolas with his tongue. She arched her back and pushed him deeper. His hands glided up the small of her back. They moved as one. He reduced her intensifying cries to murmurs with his kisses, insistent, deep.

Rudy searched his eyes with her own and rocked her hips with a more assertive pace. Cockroach struggled to maintain control. She was always calling the shots. He rested his hands on her hips and stopped her in mid thrust, a maneuver which caused Rudy to gasp with every breath she took. He kept her on the very threshold of ecstasy for more than ten minutes, refusing to budge, until Cockroach himself ached for release. The slightest gesture caused them both to climax simultaneously, clinging to each other in a frenzy of satisfied moans.

Rudy rested her head on Cockroach's shoulder.

"Fuck." he said, with a little more exasperation than she would have anticipated.

"Mmmhmmm..." she sighed contentedly, her eyes still closed and dreaming.

"Fuck!" he said again, this time with urgency.

"What is it, baby?"

And Rudy opened her eyes to a sea of curious onlookers gathered around her car windows. Apparently, school was out. And so was their little secret.


	5. Lurking Silence

Peter Chiara looped a perfect noose around the neck of a neighborhood dog. It was dead, of course. But such was the ritual. Bind, torture, asphyxiate. And then, after hours of sexual gratification, Peter would noose the dog from some structure visible from the owner's home; in this particular instance, a Japanese maple. He leered silently from behind a small hedge as Beth Engels unexpectedly stepped out onto her front stoop and called, "Charlie!" into the early morning air.

"C'mere, Charlie!" she chimed again.

And Peter forced his eyes closed at the sound, forced himself to complete the ritual without deviation. But her voice was innocent, sweet. He imagined a life wherein Beth Engels prepared his breakfast each morning. She would gaze at him lovingly and her thoughts would be pure. Not like the dogs.

"Freak. Freak. There goes the freak." the Ogawa's collie had told him in a dream. And when Peter woke, he had sought the collie and given its soul to the Dark Lord, as per the ritual. That was the first. It made him ache to remember.

"Charlie..." Beth Engels sighed. Her shoulders slumped and she returned to the warm safety of her house. Peter's hand jostled the lump inside his grey sweat pants absently. What was he doing? No. Beth was pure. No. No, no, no. He stopped himself just on the edge of release and skulked quietly back to his backyard shed. He wouldn't think about her there. He couldn't. Not yet.

Jeffrey Engels ruffled his daughter's hair as she joined him in the kitchen. "He's just wandered off, my dear." he hoped aloud, "I'm sure he'll come home when he gets hungry."

"I thought I heard him sneeze last night. What if he's sick?" Beth's eyes pleaded with her father.

"Nonsense." Jeffrey swabbed an errant pool of milk from the counter and placed a protective hand on Beth's cheek. "We'll see him soon. I promise."

Beth gathered her science project and headed toward school, her backpack heavy against her left shoulder. As she adjusted the strap, Saturn and Mars struck Uranus and rolled across the cold pavement. She huffed, then set the entire contraption down and hurried after the rogue planets. Reaching for Saturn, another hand managed to arrive first and Beth was suddenly face to face with Peter Chiara, a boy she knew quite well from the neighborhood. She smiled, knowing he would smile back and that would be the extent of their conversation. Peter had never spoken. To her or anyone else. Still, she happily welcomed his assistance.

Peter silently carried Beth's science project to the doors of the school they had once both attended. He seemed uneasy so close to the campus. Beth wondered if his father's home schooling was helping or hindering his young son, and she tried to recall whether Peter had always behaved this strangely.

"Oh well," she hadn't meant to say aloud, "thanks, Peter." Beth smiled but Peter only continued to stare at her contentedly. It sent a shiver down her spine. As she disappeared down the crowded corridors, Beth felt relieved to have left Peter Chiara well behind.

He slagged through the shrubbery, his plump arms swaying heavily like an ape's. There was sweat staining the grey sweat shirt now, he knew it. And he was panting. Hard. Had he been panting while Beth Engels had been by his side? Had his sweaty palms removed the paint from her beautiful solar system? He eyed the puffy fingers and found them clean. Good. Good.

As he entered the small house he and his father shared, he grabbed the bottle half-full of milk from the table and quickly drained it, his chest still aching from the long walk. As he swallowed, he could feel the small lumps of drowned flies floating within a sea of warm milk. Peter imagined them screaming as they went down. It aroused him sexually.

The flies had long since lost interest in Mr. Chiara, although Peter was sure that the Dark Lord now inhabiting his corpse still ocassionally called to them. Sometimes, while Peter gently sponged clean his former father's shell, a fly would emerge from his mouth or an eye socket. A messenger?

Peter exited the back door and grabbed the end of the noose with a strange reverence. The morning had come and gone without the ritual's completion, and this was unacceptable. To Peter. To the flies. To the Dark Lord. He made his way to the same Japanese maple he'd chosen hours before, and hung the dead dog from the tallest branch he could reach. Almost. It's almost time. He was panting again.

Jeffrey Engels anxiously sorted through a series of boxes, hoping to find his electric drill. It held deep meaning for the squat little man, having been his father's before him.

"Where could it be?" Jeffrey lisped, "I don't understand it!"

He kicked over a large box of Christmas ornaments and growled.

"Clifffffff!"

Jeffrey waddled out of the house, failing to lock the door behind him in his haste. He had remembered loaning his drill to Cliff Huxtable months ago and he'd be damned if the disgraced doctor was going to steal it.

"Thief!" he muttered, "Criminal!"

But as Jeffrey turned his gaze to the Huxtables' large front window, he eyes stopped upon something else entirely. Something horrifying.

"Ch-ch-ch...Charlie?" Jeffrey's voice caught in his throat. He thought of Beth and his heart lurched. He had to cut Charlie down and bury him before she returned from school. He would make something up. She would never share this sight, now burned into his psyche forever. Not now, not ever.

As the last remnants of his daughter's best friend disappeared beneath shoveled earth, Jeffrey had come to a bitter conclusion. Cliff Huxtable had done this. Cliff Huxtable had asked to borrow his father's drill knowing full well that he had intended to steal it. And the dog, the dog was merely insult to injury. Cliff's way of laughing right in his face. Jeffrey dropped the shovel and clenched his fists at his side. Cliff Huxtable was responsible. And Cliff Huxtable would pay.

"Jeffrey Engels, what a pleasant supri..." Clair's voice was like a long-forgotten recording of itself. Fake. Empty.

"I'm here to see Cliff!" Jeffrey demanded, "Right now."

"Cliff...Cliff is...indisposed..." Clair eyed the staircase leading to the couple's bedroom. She had left him draped across the ottoman, eyes lolled back, his veins full of black tar heroin. Clair had no such escape. And without Cliff, she had nothing. But Jeffrey had already started up the stairs. And after all these years, and all this pain, she just didn't have the energy to stop him.

Beth Engels called out to her father as she dropped her backpack onto the livingroom floor.

"Dad, I'm home!"

But there was no answer. Beth shrugged, grabbed an apple from the bowl of fruit atop the coffee table, and headed for her bedroom. She wanted to call Rudy and find out where she had gone during lunch. She hoped the explanation was juicy.

Peter Chiara grabbed her head as she rounded the corner and pulled her into the bathroom. It all happened so quickly that she was only acutely aware of the smell of bleach and the gentle swish-swish of cotton-clad thighs rubbing against one another. Plump fingers held her head tightly and squeezed as they moved. Peter twisted her head to meet his gaze, his expression blank. Beth began to weep.

Bottles of Clorox had been emptied inside a tub of hot water, and the air was noxious. Peter still held her by the head, his hands curled around her cheeks and ears, pushing them together. Beth's sobs made him excited, and he grabbed onto her ear with one hand while caressing his erection with the other. She sobbed even harder.

"P-P-P-Peter?" she began, hoping he would just run away, as he had done so many times before, "Peter? Why?"

He cocked his head to one side and relished her confusion. She was his gift. A gift from his true father, the Dark Lord. He had been pleased with Peter's latest ritual. And now, Peter would finally become a man.

Beth struggled valiantly against Peter's inhuman strength as he held her naked body beneath the hot bleach water. His knees rested on the tatters of clothing he had ripped from her moments before. Soon she would be clean, he thought. Soon she would be ready.

"Are you...are you going to kill me?" Beth sobbed, trying hard to find some semblance of humanity in his vacant eyes.

Peter shook his head, lifting her body from the tub and wrapping it in white sheets he had procured earlier from the Engels' linen closet. Beth sniffed and pulled the sheets tighter. Peter's mood had seemed to lighten and this time, he lead her through the house by the hand. Gently. Perhaps everything was going to be OK. She took a deep breath and tried to sound calm.

"Peter, it's alright." she told him sweetly, "You won't get in trouble. Just go home and you won't get in trouble."

But Peter had come for his manhood, his salvation. The Dark Lord had promised this. He peered into her soul, his faith unwavering. He slung Beth over his shoulder, exited out the back, and scurried to the old shed.

When Beth regained consciousness, pointed rocks pierced her back and she felt as if her hair had been pulled out by the roots. Had hours passed? Or was it days? A small window offered just enough light to make out a pair of eyes above her, grimacing in ecstasy. She gasped, her memory flooding back all at once.

Peter's strangely-shaped member pulsed inside of her. It felt wrong, barbed and cold. The darkness swirling around them seemed alive, and the dirt floor of the shed pushed her upward, prodded her purposefully. There was evil here and it was consuming her. Peter had promised not to kill her, but now she knew that there were worse things than death.

Peter experienced orgasm after orgasm, emitting a high-pitched shriek with each release. His semen felt like carbonated ice water. The air became thick and black. She could no longer make out his eyes. Was this death? Her body was falling, falling. And then, nothing.

Jeffrey stroked his daughter's face as she lay motionless in the hospital bed. Seven months since he had found her lying on the floor of her bedroom, bloody and broken. Seven months since she had entered into a deep coma. He was forgetting the gentle lilt of her voice, the way she smiled outside of school photographs. It was as if she had died already. He had prepared himself for it. He was ready. Hell, he had had seven months to steady himself for the inevitable.

But Beth woke up. Almost seven months to the day. And Jeffrey held his daughter as if he had always expected a miracle.

"Daddy?" The words came out in an almost inaudible whisper.

"I'm here, pumpkin." Tears streamed down Jeffrey's cheeks.

Beth shifted uncomfortably. Her back ached and she felt as if her stomach was full of lead.

"Easy...easy..." her father gently lisped.

"I'm OK, just..." her hands lingered at her midsection, the source of her discomfort, "Oh God. Oh God no."

The swollen flesh harbored something alive, something not quite human, and it undulated at her touch. Tears filled her eyes.

"What is it, pumpkin?" Jeffrey was already poised to call the nurse.

"I'm...I'm..." she sobbed.

"Seven months pregnant! Isn't it miraculous! All hail the Dark Lord!" her father beamed.

Beth closed her eyes and prayed for death.


End file.
